Looking back at the history of PSU.com :D

I'm really interested in the site's history. I joined in 2009, but there was a lot more history before then. Any of you 2004+ vets, tell me how it used to be; what were the old traditions, in-house jokes, megatons, achievements, disasters, members that you remember.

The classic in-house PSU joke would probably be the "year of the PS3" proclamations lol. Every year our members would list the upcoming games and insist the PS3 would finally wipe the floor with the competition and return to PS2-level glory.

On a related note, the Lefein pep rally threads always stick out the most when I look back to 2006 and 2007. He would create a thread about once a week where he'd make a long post detailing why things were looking good for the PS3. They read like motivational speeches.

And the most memorable thread for me personally was the thread I made about the Final Fantasy VII Best Buy ad:

This forum went crazy and the thread went on for hundreds of pages. People were coming in and telling us how stupid we were lol. Then the thread was deleted by the mods as soon as we reached the scheduled release date of the game and saw nothing happened.

The classic in-house PSU joke would probably be the "year of the PS3" proclamations lol. Every year our members would list the upcoming games and insist the PS3 would finally wipe the floor with the competition and return to PS2-level glory.

On a related note, the Lefein pep rally threads always stick out the most when I look back to 2006 and 2007. He would create a thread about once a week where he'd make a long post detailing why things were looking good for the PS3. They read like motivational speeches.

And the most memorable thread for me personally was the thread I made about the Final Fantasy VII Best Buy ad:

This forum went crazy and the thread went on for hundreds of pages. People were coming in and telling us how stupid we were lol. Then the thread was deleted by the mods as soon as we reached the scheduled release date of the game and saw nothing happened.

Damn dude, did you have to remind us about that? That was both the happiest AND saddest time of the PS3 gen for me.

I joined back in November 2007. I literally typed in "PS3 forums" and this popped up on the first page of google searches, but it wasn't the first link. Anyway, I browsed it and liked what I saw, a page where I could be a PS3 fanboy without any consequences. Turns out, it wasn't so true. There are rules. No trolling/flaming and that was fine. I was still a PS fanboy at the time, but I eventually grew out of it. Still, it was a fun time from 07 to 11. Everything changed once the Geohotz PS3 modding scandal hit. Then there was the hack, right after they removed "OtherOS". A lot of us, including myself, thought Anon had part in it, and they probably did, but Lulzsec was apparently the culprit. They even hacked Sega's website at one point I think. But that whole ordeal/scandal with Geohotz and the protest against SONY removing OtherOS saw a major paradigm shift in virtual friendships on the forums.

I call those the dark ages..then, slowly, the site kinda died down. I feel it's not as active as it once was. A lot of regs are not on this anymore, I kinda miss them. Hopefully the PS4 launch has prompted a more organic site.

I'm really interested in the site's history. I joined in 2009, but there was a lot more history before then. Any of you 2004+ vets, tell me how it used to be; what were the old traditions, in-house jokes, megatons, achievements, disasters, members that you remember.

All you need to know was it used to be the best Internet forum.

Was the Geohotz PS3 thing when PSN went down for 3 weeks? I don't know much because I didn't follow any of it. I wondered what it was like on here during that epic outage for PSN for that long.

Final Fantasy IX is without question not only the best video game ever made, but the best entertainment created by mankind.

When I first joined, the PS3 was still a fair way away, and I literally knew nothing about what was in next gen consoles (as they were then). I quickly learned people were hell a hyped for games like these:

There was much much debate about what and what not the Cell was actually going to be capable of, what was or was not in the RSX.
Whith Aquanox doing his best to push the 360 cause, and we had many long since departed members who had a hell of a time debating all things technical, in a robust, informed discussion.

We had members who actually worked on the Cell back then, a particular fellow who worked with IBM, and he was a gold mine of information. I myself had just come of 3 years of development on a game engine, and between a few of us we bandied about what was and was not possible with threading, and more specifically SPU's.

It was a hell of a lot of fun, and less about games, because there weren't any out, and more about tech.

I remember when we had a home theatre section. Back then when 360/PS3 and HDTVs were new. The forum was packed with questions.
"What is HDMI?" "What's the difference with component/HDMI?" "PS3 has support for 1080p!"

I remember the HDDVD/360 against the Bluray/PS3.

And REFLEX, the HD guru of the forums back then. He practically run the whole HD section. Then, people started learning, REFLEX moved on and the HD section died out.

Interesting times. A lot of the games we hyped went on to create series that defined the generation such as Uncharted. There was a plethora of bad news after the PS3 launched and it started to become clear that the XBox was the go-to choice for at least the first two years of this gen. At every show, there was some kind of news that MS stole a "playstation franchise" from PS3 and it was the end of Sony.

Hell, even in the year 2013, the "Sony is doomed" news still trickles out from time to time. It was just louder and "hypey-er?" back in those days. It didn't help that pretty much every gaming website played along. The truth of the matter is, this site was a bit of a battleground in those early days. A lot of XBox fanboys would come here with the sole intent to troll. There were some blunders by moderation staff that even led some of those trolls to become SMCs and such in the "interest of fairness". As a result, a lot of the old posters ended up leaving the place because it ended up being too hostile and lost focus as a Playstation site.

What you see today is a mish-mash after the fallout. TBH, a lot of your real loyal Playstation fanbase have moved on to other things. What you have now is a far more agnostic crowd. Be that good or bad, it's not really my judgement. There's a lot less arguing and hostility these days, but the opinions that get bantered about usually lack veracity or conviction. TBH, nothing you wouldn't find on any other gaming community and unoriginal as hell. If I could say anything about the "old days" on this forum, it's that they were pretty exciting for a while.

Last edited by Lefein; 12-31-2013 at 17:18.

The surest sign that you are on the right side of a debate is when you find yourself against those who are stuck in the past because they have no future.

Interesting times. A lot of the games we hyped went on to create series that defined the generation such as Uncharted. There was a plethora of bad news after the PS3 launched and it started to become clear that the XBox was the go-to choice for at least the first two years of this gen. At every show, there was some kind of news that MS stole a "playstation franchise" from PS3 and it was the end of Sony.

Hell, even in the year 2013, the "Sony is doomed" news still trickles out from time to time. It was just louder and "hypey-er?" back in those days. It didn't help that pretty much every gaming website played along. The truth of the matter is, this site was a bit of a battleground in those early days. A lot of XBox fanboys would come here with the sole intent to troll. There were some blunders by moderation staff that even led some of those trolls to become SMCs and such in the "interest of fairness". As a result, a lot of the old posters ended up leaving the place because it ended up being too hostile and lost focus as a Playstation site.

What you see today is a mish-mash after the fallout. TBH, a lot of your real loyal Playstation fanbase have moved on to other things. What you have now is a far more agnostic crowd. Be that good or bad, it's not really my judgement. There's a lot less arguing and hostility these days, but the opinions that get bantered about usually lack veracity or conviction. TBH, nothing you wouldn't find on any other gaming community and unoriginal as hell. If I could say anything about the "old days" on this forum, it's that they were pretty exciting for a while.

I feel the excitement back then was more due to the time period rather than the moderation. Two reasons:

1) The PS2 was the best selling console of all-time, which meant the amount of PlayStation fans was at an all-time high.

2) The technological leap that generation was more ambitious than the recent leap.

This meant the majority of gamers were looking to the PS3 and since the PS3 was so ambitious and hyped, there was more excitement at the time. (Total fans * ambition = MUCH HYPE)

Then we had the Xbox 360 surprisingly proving to be a threat, which caused initial chaos and intense bouts of discussion.

Now we have PlayStation and Xbox roughly split down the middle, and the new consoles are more conservative. It's simply a less provocative time with less paradigm-shifting.

The classic in-house PSU joke would probably be the "year of the PS3" proclamations lol. Every year our members would list the upcoming games and insist the PS3 would finally wipe the floor with the competition and return to PS2-level glory.

On a related note, the Lefein pep rally threads always stick out the most when I look back to 2006 and 2007. He would create a thread about once a week where he'd make a long post detailing why things were looking good for the PS3. They read like motivational speeches.

That pretty much sums it up. Every upcoming PS3 game was supposed to hit the nitrious boost button and have the 360 eating the PS3's dust in console sales numbers.

Reminds me of what Capt. Kirk said to Kahn in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn.....

Kirk: Khan, you bloodsucker. You're going to have to do your own dirty work now! Do you hear me? Do you?

Khan: Kirk? You're still alive, my old friend?

Kirk: Still, "old friend!" You've managed to kill everyone else, but like a poor marksman, you keep missing the target!

I've been here since late 2007 (ignore my join date, it's false). I really can't remember anything from those early years. For a long time I just coasted along and went with the flow, not really paying attention to the traits and details of the forum. I still kinda do, to be honest...

I've been here since late 2007 (ignore my join date, it's false). I really can't remember anything from those early years. For a long time I just coasted along and went with the flow, not really paying attention to the traits and details of the forum. I still kinda do, to be honest...

Let's not forget our epic, high-brow Rapture vs Vulgotha debates on philosophy, science, and religion! I wanted to turn that into a weekly tradition. I wanted to be your Don King.

They were passionate, albeit heated, days. Everyone had written off the 360 based on the poor results of the original xbox and many people said the PS3 would outsell it within a year. Absolutely nobody predicted the kicking that Nintendo gave everyone.

Highlight for for me was sitting on train to London and seeing the guy next to me finalising the release deals and marketing for Uncharted weeks before any announcement. Got a ton of rep for the stuff I wrote up in a thread on it.

Well I've been a a member here since 2005 but I never was a very active one(even to this day) but I sure do remember the heated discussions that took place back then, kinda miss it sometimes. . I feel old haha

Let's not forget our epic, high-brow Rapture vs Vulgotha debates on philosophy, science, and religion! I wanted to turn that into a weekly tradition. I wanted to be your Don King.

But that only occurred a couple years ago I suppose.

I really enjoyed that debate with Vulgotha. It gave me a lot of insight, and it drove me to read more into philosophy and religion. But it was doomed to not repeat, as we agreed to disagree, and also that it'd be any difficult task to convince the other. It was a story book with a proper end and no need of a sequel. I'd also be uncomfortable to revisit it with him, as I worry I would strain things between us.

However I do like the idea of debating other subjects with people here. The issue is that 90% of the population is focused on video games only, and the rest are generally too weak-willed to put up a real argument or ignorant for a substantial opinion. Most people simply aren't here to discuss the nature of reality, sadly.

I really enjoyed that debate with Vulgotha. It gave me a lot of insight, and it drove me to read more into philosophy and religion. But it was doomed to not repeat, as we agreed to disagree, and also that it'd be any difficult task to convince the other. It was a story book with a proper end and no need of a sequel. I'd also be uncomfortable to revisit it with him, as I worry I would strain things between us.

However I do like the idea of debating other subjects with people here. The issue is that 90% of the population is focused on video games only, and the rest are generally too weak-willed to put up a real argument or ignorant for a substantial opinion. Most people simply aren't here to discuss the nature of reality, sadly.

I wonder if people would get into planned debate threads...someone picks a topic, those who want to take part are given a couple of days to ponder/read etc then we have at it. There are a lot of really good debaters here.

@all, thanks for the replies, it's enjoyable to read what people have to say about the early days.

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